Process of forming decorative panels



UNITED STATES PATENT. OFFICE.

ELINA M. WRIGHT, OF HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT.

PROCESS OF FORMING DECORATIVE PANELS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 501,265, dated July 11, 1893.

Application filed September 13, 1892- Serial No. 445,817. (No specimens.)

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, ELINA M. WRIGHT, a citizen of the United States, residing at Hartford, in the county of Hartford and State of Connecticut, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Processes for Forming Decorative Panels, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact specification.

The invention relates to the processes for forming panels, slabs, blocks, tiles or similar pieces for use as table tops, mantel pieces, fire places, ceilings, floorings, friezes, dadoes and the like structures, the object being to produce a simple and cheap process whereby a common, inexpensive and easily obtained material may be provided with an artistic and aesthetic decoration which shall be so incorporated with the material as to be absolutely permanent and unchangeable.

In the practice of the process a smooth panel, slab, block or tile of cheap ordinary slate or a similar porous heat resisting substance of the desired thickness is obtained. Upon this the desired decorative design which may be a landscape, marine view, portrait, or fruit picture, an arbitrary design or symbol, or an assimilation of graining or veining is sketched with lake or similar transparent paints of suitable colors and shades, which are dissolved in a transparent varnish, magilp or a pure white Demar varnish, which does not affect the colors, is thin and will soak with the colors into the pores of the slate, and which will volatilize under heat and not remain on the surface. The colors which are used very thin so that they will soak deeply into the slate, are applied several times, one coat upon another, to give body to the coloring of the decoration, each coat being allowed to settle into the slate and there become thoroughly dried before the next is applied. The panel in this condition is placed in a muffle, usually a tight iron box, and from atmospheric temperature is very slowly and gradually raised to a white heat so that the varnish with the pigments will liquidize and soak more deeply into the pores of the slate, then volatilize or be consumed leaving the coloring matter in the pores of the slate, with none on the surface. This is then allowed to cool very gradually and when cold is polished to a high degree by rubbing with sand and water as a common piece of slate, after which it may or may not, as desired, be varnished for a finish. By means of this process a cheap piece of ordinary slate may be ornamented with a landscape, marine view, portrait or fruit picture, with arbitrary designs or symbols, or with patterns simulating the veins of marble or the grain of wood,and as the decorating varnish-dissolved colors are conveyed into the pores of the slate by the liquid v'arnishand there fixed by the melting and volatilizing of the varnish under heat they cannot be eradicated or removed by rubbing or abrasion, as can the burned surface ornamentation of china painting or porcelain decoration, the pigments of which are dissolved in turpentine, poppy or fat oils that if subjected to the intense heat to which the slate in this process is subjected in order that the varnish colors may be permanently absorbed into the pores of the slate, would blister and crack without soaking into the substance upon the surface of which it was painted. Pieces formedby this process are particularly adapted for mantel pieces and fire places as the material and the colors are not affected by heat, and they can also be used for table tops, ceilings, dadoes, friezes and floors which are subject to much abrading wear as the decoration be- 7 comes by this process a part of the structure of the substance and grows smoother with the wear of the stone which is cheap and can be readily obtained in large quantities of desired shape and size.

I claim as my invention The herein described process of forming decorative panels which consists in sketching the same design repeatedly upon a piece of porous stone with transparent pigments liqnidized in varnish, allowing each application to permeate and dry in the pores of the stone before repeating, placing this in a muffle and gradually raising its temperature to a white heat, then allowing the same to cool gradually, after which it is polished by abrading the surface of the stone and decoration, substantially as specified.

ELINA M. WRIGHT.

Witnesses:

H. R. WILLIAMS, 0. E. BUCKLAND. 

